INTRODUCTION.
By the Editor.
Part II. THE EARLY DESCRIPTIONS OF AMERICA AND COLLECTIVE ACCOUNTS OF THE EARLY VOYAGES THERETO.
OF the earliest collection of voyages of which we have any mention we possess only a defective copy, which is in the Biblioteca Marciana, and is called Libretto de tutta la navigazione del Rè di Spagna delle isole e terreni nuovamente scoperti stampato per Vercellese. It was published at Venice in 1504,[131] and is said to contain the first three voyages of Columbus. This account, together with the narrative of Cabral’s voyage printed at Rome and Milan, and an original—at present unknown—of Vespucius’ third voyage, were embodied, with other matter, in the Paesi novamente retrovati et novo mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato, published at Vicentia in 1507,[132] and again possibly at Vicentia in 1508,—though the evidence is wanting to support the statement,—but certainly at Milan in that year (1508).[133] There were later editions in 1512,[134] 1517,[135] 1519[136] (published at Milan), and 1521.[137] There are also German,[138] Low German,[139] Latin,[140] and French[141] translations.
While this Zorzi-Montalboddo compilation was flourishing, an Italian scholar, domiciled in Spain, was recording, largely at first hand, the varied reports of the voyages which were then opening a new existence to the world. This was Peter Martyr, of whom Harrisse[142] cites an early and quaint sketch from Hernando Alonso de Herrera’s Disputatio adversus Aristotelez (1517).[143] The general historians have always made due acknowledgment of his service to them.[144]
Harrisse could find no evidence of Martyr’s First Decade having been printed at Seville as early as 1500, as is sometimes stated; but it has been held that a translation of it,—though no copy is now known,—made by Angelo Trigviano into Italian was the Libretto de tutta la navigazione del Rè di Spagna, already mentioned.[145] The earliest unquestioned edition was that of 1511, which was printed at Seville with the title Legatio Babylonica; it contained nine books and a part of the tenth book of the First Decade.[146] In 1516 a new edition, without map, was printed at Alcalá in Roman letter. The part of the tenth book of the First Decade in the 1511 edition is here annexed to the ninth, and a new tenth book is added, besides two other decades, making three in all.[147]
There exists what has been called a German version (Die Schiffung mitt dem lanndt der Gulden Insel) of the First Decade, in which the supposed author is called Johan von Angliara; and its date is 1520, or thereabout; but Mr. Deane, who has the book, says that it is not Martyr’s.[148] Some Poemata, which had originally been included in the publication of the First Decade, were separately printed in 1520.[149]